If this is such a pressing issue, they need to start turning some of the Disney stars into developers (whoops, sorry, I mean "coders," that's the trending buzz word).

All these people should have their own prime time shows about the exciting life of a software developer. The basics of CLIs and text editors on multiple operating systems. How to use version control. How to write unit tests and pass continuous integration. How to help QA your own dog food. How to diplomatically interface with folks in other departments. How to write documentation. How to triage trouble tickets. How to train your own replacement.

Oh, wait! None of that's sexy. Kids wouldn't tune in to shows like that because it isn't what most of them want to do, any more than most kids wanted to do in decades past. The ones who really are interested in development will pursue this path on their own, as many of us did. We don't and won't have any lack of competent workers, because some percentage of us will always be nerds who love this stuff. We do have a surplus of companies who want to save every last penny by farming jobs out to H-1Bs, and we do have a corresponding surplus of unemployed competent Americans.

We're at a point where entry-level tech support jobs are routinely requiring a bachelor's degree or foreign equivalent, junior analyst jobs are requiring an MBA or foreign equivalent, etc. Companies are quick to complain that there are no qualified local workers, because they can't find an American with a four-year degree who knows Linux + Solaris + J2EE + Servlets + IIS + SAP + Oracle + 10 years with Sharepoint, and is willing to work 70 hours a week for $35,000 per year. Meanwhile they have a guy from Bangalore whose resume claims he does precisely all of that, and maybe they won't check out all of his qualifications if he's willing to share a room at Extended Stay America with 5 of his peers for a year or two, wink wink nod nod.

The market is already saturated, and will be for some years to come. Where's the federal push to create more tradesmen (plumbers, electricians, mechanics, carpenters)? To create more lawyers, or accountants, or any other career path? I'm growing weary of this idea that every child in America must be a developer^Wcoder. It serves no purpose but to suppress salaries across the board and even further encourage the H-1B loophole.

It wasn't the weight of the olives, it was the scale and sheer cost. One olive seems like a pittance, inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. But when you fly many thousands of flights with several pax being served salads on each flight (this was the 80s after all) that one olive per salad turns into $100,000. In the 80s, that paid a captain for a year. Now it would probably pay two, but I digress.

You're intentionally distracting from the point. Passenger weight will fluctuate whether paper manuals are on board or not. The weight of the POH and other documents is a known quantity; the airline does know, at least in approximation, how much the dead-tree manuals and a big book of Jepp charts weigh. Eliminate that weight and you will see savings through the fleet. Passenger weight is going to vary whether you're going with paper manuals, AA's app, Foreflight, or some guy who thinks God is his F/O.

You have to consider scale. In the 1980s, American saved $100,000 a year by removing one olive from each salad they served on their flights. One olive is no big deal, but across their entire operation, the savings added up.

American says they operate 6,700 flights per day or around 2.5 million per year. If they remove 40 lbs of dead tree manuals from each flight, that's 100 million pounds of cargo they aren't paying to carry around every year.

Neither Apple nor Google have made enough payments yet; the FBI director is still loudly accusing them of supporting terrorists and pedophiles.

Do those studies take into account so-called victims who make multiple false reports of rape and sexual assault? Do those studies take into account imaginary offenders? Do those studies tally up "offenders" like "Haven Monahan" who exist only in the mind of their demented accusers?

You're damned right. I understand that rapes and sexual assaults do take place, but we've seen a number of verified false reports over the past year. It's bad enough that a woman can file a false police report and ruin someone's reputation or even send him to jail; the ability to do it at the click of a button is simply absurd.

Yes, pretty funny story.

On the plus side, if that's enough justification to strip this church of its tax-exempt status, maybe it'll work on the scienos, too.

Considering that they specifically mentioned IHeartRadio, which is what ClearChannel has become, I'm certain that you're correct to an extent. There's still corruption, but it's been redirected. These days instead of labels paying the stations, the labels are paying politicians. And ClearChannel's campaign contributions have apparently dwindled to the point where the music industry is outdoing them. I figure all this proposed legislation will do is cause ClearChannel, or IHeart, or whatever they call themselves these days (funny they change their name around, sort of like Gator/Claria or Blackwater/Xe/Academi) to send more sacks of cash. The politicians will benefit and everyone else will get fucked.

That's because radio is free advertising for the artists. Now they want the free advertising and to get paid for it, too? In decades past, the labels would bribe radio station PD's to get their music played; I wonder if they'd rather return to that model where it costs them money (and coke, and cars, and plane tickets) to get their artists some airtime?

Speaking of payola, it should come as no surprise that "TV/Movies/Music" are among the top 3 industries donating money to both Mr. Nadler and Ms. Blackburn.

I hadn't heard that for all the North Korea rabble-rousing and misdirection. Were there ever any real postmortem details? I remember seeing plenty of speculation, but none mentioning this attack; if the official report from Mandiant ever came out, it didn't cross my radar.

Especially when they offshore so much of their workforce in order to pay shit wages. Some guy sitting in a boiler room in Colombia has very little connection to his parent company and is outside the jurisdiction of the US. I'd say that gives him more incentive to steal and sell corporate data, or at least less incentive not to, than a happy US-based employee.

I'm pretty sure Prey uses a database of known wifi networks and their locations. For example, the Google Maps cars don't just take pictures, they also record a fingerprint of every 802.11 network they encounter; SSID, coordinates, the router's MAC address. There are public crowdsourced databases that do this, too. If you power up your computer and you're in range of a wireless network that's in one of these databases, Prey will locate you that way.